Pay Rs 1 lakh and adopt a temple

HYDERABAD: Coming under pressure from public representatives and devotees of thousands of temple around the state, the government has decided to take the help of non-resident Indians, philanthropists and rich devotees to extend the Dhoopa, Deepa and Naivedyam Scheme for other temples. The government has issued an order in this regard today.

It is learnt that the Endowments Commissioner stated in a letter written to the government that there were thousands of temples which were not in a position to afford salaries to archakas and perform the daily rituals.

The government had taken up maintenance of 2,016 temples under Dhoopa, Deepa Naivedyam scheme earlier but now the number had increased to 3,165.

It has become difficult for the government to extend the scheme to other temple in view of the financial crunch, the letter said A lot of representations were pouring in from public representatives to cover some more temples in their areas under the scheme, he said.

In this backdrop, the government felt that it was desirable to encourage NRI devotees, philanthropists, business people, industrialists and the devout to come forward to adopt the ancient and needy temples in villages and semi-urban areas of their choice in the state under Dhoopa Deepa Naivedyam Scheme, provided they donate required funds to government.

To provide such facility it had issued guidelines through anorder. If any donor comes forward to deposit Rs one lakh with the assistant commissioner of endowments of the district concerned, such donor can choose one temple in the area of his choice and Dhoopa, Deepa and Naivedyam scheme will be implemented through an Archaka appointed by the Endowments Department for a period of three years.

In such adopted temples, archakas appointed by the Endowments Department will perform the rituals in the name of the donor every day. However the scheme is valid for three years only and the donor has to pay one more lakh rupees to renew the scheme, the order said .

However, the donor cannot exercise any right or interfere in the the day-to-day functioning of the temple.

The donor will be received with temple honours whenever he visits the temple.